One document matched: draft-van-beijnum-v6ops-connect-method-00.txt

IPv6 Operations                                           I. van Beijnum
Internet-Draft                                              July 2, 2007
Expires: January 2, 2008


        IPv4/IPv6 Interoperation Using the HTTP CONNECT Method
               draft-van-beijnum-v6ops-connect-method-00

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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).


Abstract

  As of the deprecation of NAT-PT as a mechanism to allow IPv6-only
  hosts to connect to IPv4-only hosts, there is no longer a viable
  way to provide interoperation between IPv4-only and IPv6-only hosts
  connected to the internet.

  This document outlines a way to use the HTTP CONNECT method (better
  known as HTTPS proxying) to accomplish this interoperation for a
  large (but not the full) set of IP applications. The intent is to



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  provide a base level usability for IPv6-only hosts to remove the
  need to provide IPv4 connectivity in all cases.

1 Introduction

  In order to allow HTTP proxies to proxy SSL/TLS protected HTTP
  requests (HTTPS), these proxies implement the CONNECT method, which
  allows a client to ask the proxy to set up a TCP session towards a
  remote host. After this, the proxy connects the client to the new
  TCP session so the client can exchange data with the remote host
  without the proxy needing to be aware of the protocol details. This
  makes this mechanism usable for all client-to-server protocols that
  use TCP. The CONNECT method is widely implemented, but was never
  standardized in an RFC.

  This document proposes that when a host as IPv6 connectivity, but
  not IPv4 connectivity, and an application tries to set up a TCP
  session towards an IPv4 destination, the TCP/IP stack intercepts
  the TCP session creation attempt, and sets up a session towards a
  previously configured HTTPS proxy. It then asks the proxy to connect
  to the desired IPv4 address, and if successful, presents the TCP
  connection towards the proxy to the application.

  Conversely, if an IPv4-only hosts wants to talk to an IPv6-only
  host, the same thing happens. Obviously, the proxy must be connect
  to both the IPv4 and the IPv6 internet.

2 Limitations

  This mechanism only works in one direction: a client can set up a
  session towards a server through a proxy, but a client can't
  receive incoming sessions through a proxy. However, if an IPv4-only
  host and an IPv6-only host both use this mechanism, both hosts will
  be able to set up sessions towards the other.

  The mechanism also only works with TCP. This makes it unsuitable as
  a complete replacement for IPv4 (or dual stack) connectivity.
  However, since most applications use TCP, the mechanism is still
  useful for two reasons:

  1. It provides an easy way to provide 90% or more of the utility of
     dual stack operation, but without the need to run IPv4

  2. Efforts to update applications and protocols to work over IPv6
     can be targeted to the relatively limited set of applications
     that don't work over TCP





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3 IANA considerations

  None.

4 Security considerations

  Being connected to a different IP address than expected, and even
  being transported over a different version of the IP protocol than
  expected means applications and protocols will be exposed to a
  different environment than what they were intended to interact
  with, which is always problematic from a security standpoint.

  However, there is ample experience with HTTPS proxying and SSL and
  TLS encryption and authentication can be used to provide end-to-end
  security, so any security concerns are limited to applications and
  protocols that don't use SSL/TLS.

5 Document and Author Information

  This document expires January, 2008. The latest version will always
  be available at http://www.muada.com/drafts/. Please direct questions
  and comments to the v6ops mailinglist or directly to the author:

    Iljitsch van Beijnum

    Email: iljitsch@muada.com

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Acknowledgment

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